कहानी ख़तम है..या शुरुआत होने को है.. सुबह नयी है ये.. या फिर रात होने को है .. (This is NOT a film review)

Some places become just more than places in your life…they become you. Udaan is one such film that takes you back to such places. It was almost a memory extracted right from my brain when I saw the first scene of kids sneaking out of their dormitory as soon as the warden disappears. I didn’t go to Bishop Cotton School like them…but I sure was a boarder of Bishop Westcott. It is one such place that becomes me. Well, I sure didn’t cross the wall to watch “Kaanti Shaah ke Angoor”…but I did know quite a few teachers who might have!

It is a different feeling all together when you leave the hostel gates with a one way gate passes. Especially when you look behind at your friends, you partners in crime, and those walls around which you framed yourself. Udaan is a film that shows us what we did, what they did, and what they told us not to do. We and they; all did the same things none the less. It, oh so beautifully, splits open our own head and shows us what we are, what we were and what we yearn to be. Dazed and confused to the world, the teen heart, the teen mind, but also the most beautifully naïve and fresh, the teen mind, the teen heart. The bravest, not corrupted with the knowledge of dangerous and safe. Yes, the bravest indeed. Age is foolish and forgetful when it under estimates the youth (by J.K. Rowling).

I am no one to judge how good or how bad the film was. But I sure know that no one can deny the raw reality behind this film. The reality being responsibility. The responsibility that the young are ever so frequently reminded of, but the responsibility rarely practiced by the imparters. What can a teacher teach me, who screws around behind his wife? How can a father make his son, a man; when he himself is spineless? I am just one of the lucky few, who have a perfect father. But it’s time that the ticker skin, disguising his tyranny and hypocrisy with age, power an experience realize, that rebellion is not just a fashion today…we are born with it. It’s the basic jungle rule. Self preservation. Survival. If the one who gives you his flesh and blood thinks he can own you, and disfigure you; you can any day be at the liberty of disowning him.

Frankly I have no idea of what I am writing…but I have personally seen fathers screwing around with other women and expecting it to be the mother’s fault when his boy smokes. It’s the most blatant form of blasphemy. Either you fix him or fix yourself. Either let him bind you or take your own flight. But do not become him. Never blame your faults to be his. Once again I must say, I am blessed to have a father like mine…and feel sorry for those who have not got a father figure in their father. Go ahead. Set yourself free….take your flight of success. UDAAN.